Page 76 of Claimed By the Enemy

But every time I close my eyes, I see her face when she came home yesterday. The guilt, the fear, the way she couldn’t quite meet my eyes when I asked what Uncle Enzo had told her.

“Just do this one thing for me,” I say. “Find out what she’s hiding. Then I’ll know how to move forward.”

“Dom-”

“Please, Raff. I’m asking as your friend.”

He sighs, the sound heavy with reluctance. “What exactly do you want me to find out?”

“Everything. Where she went yesterday, who she talked to, what Uncle Enzo told her. I need to know if she’s still planning to destroy me or if she’s finally chosen a side.”

“And if she’s chosen your side?”

“Then we figure out how to protect her from whatever her uncle is planning.”

“And if she hasn’t?”

“Then I’ll deal with that too.”

Raff studies my face for a long moment, probably seeing more than I want him to. “You know, there’s another possibility here.”

“Which is?”

“That Sophie is caught between two impossible choices, and instead of forcing her to pick a side, you could try helping her find a third option.”

“What kind of third option?”

“The kind where nobody has to betray anyone. Where you work together to solve this instead of working against each other.”

“That would require complete honesty from both of us.”

“Yes. It would.”

“And Sophie’s not capable of that.”

“Isn’t she? Or are you just not capable of asking for it?”

Before I can respond, there’s a soft knock at my office door.

“Come in,” I call.

Sophie appears in the doorway, and my heart does that stupid stuttering thing it’s been doing since the day I met her. She’s wearing a simple blue dress that brings out her eyes, and her hair is pulled back in a way that shows the elegant line of her neck.

She looks beautiful. And terrified.

“Am I interrupting?” she asks, glancing between Raff and me.

“Not at all,” Raff says, standing up. “I was just leaving.”

“Actually,” Sophie says, her voice carefully controlled, “I think I heard enough.”

My blood goes cold. “Sophie-”

“You want to know what I’m hiding? You want Raff to investigate me like I’m some kind of criminal?” She steps into the office, closing the door behind her. “Save yourselves the trouble. I’ll tell you myself.”

“Sophie, it’s not what you think-”

“Isn’t it?” She moves to the chair Raff just vacated, sitting down with the kind of rigid control that tells me she’s barely holding herself together. “You think I’m lying to you. You think I’m still playing games, still trying to destroy you.”